As an author, I do keep a running list on Goodreads of books I both finished and enjoyed enough to mention. Or at least would be interested in discussing over a cuppa. Also, as an author, I never leave reviews. There are a great many politics and egos involved that, frankly, take all the fun out of it.
But I’m an avid reader and if I didn’t make a note somewhere of the words I consume, they’d be lost as fast as I digested them, composted into the alphabet soup that nourishes my own writing muse. If you asked for my recipe, I’d be hard pressed to pull a book title out of my head from memory. So. I write it down.
We somehow made it all the way into May before I made time to create a new list. Perhaps it will be monthly. Quarterly?
On this list are books that made me think. Ponder. Explore. Stretch. Grow. Laugh.
Some were recommended. Others landed on my desk through a book club full of Seekers. Warriors. Women determined to keep their spiritual wits about them.
In the traditions of my past, these books are dangerous. It never occurred to me that my church had a banned books policy. Nobody ever said it like that. But, “all you need is the Bible” and only books written by the right people who understood the right doctrines were “safe” to read.
Safe for who?
“You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything,” as the saying goes.
But that is neither the place you begin nor the place you end,
because where you stand will always be changing if you keep moving forward.
Don’t get me wrong. All my life, I’ve read a huge variety of books, many in the self-help and psych category for example, because I love trying to understand people. I find humans complex and often scary. That is on me, of course. Ignorance and timidity (and a great many other things) can be cured with education, practice, and patience.
Anyhow, probably most denominations have their own curated reading library. I just never stopped there. Let’s move forward.
In the author industry, your career can be made or broken with reviews people leave about your work. Some books have been tanked before they even launch, torpedoed on Goodreads by someone’s personal vendetta or personal taste. Other books launch on the “top ten” list by virtue of readers getting in there and gushing. It’s really all about money. The more good reviews, the more people will buy it, so the more I can sell, the more publishers notice, the better I can market, and the more I get hired for the next job.
There are an infinity number of books written as Bible reviews. How to read it. Interpret it. Live it. The Mishnah. The Talmud. And when you understand how Jesus taught, you realize there is a reason that, “of the making of books, there is no end.” Iron sharpens iron.
His disciples knock. Seek. Ask. There is never an end to their questions, they never arrive at a unifying doctrine, they are confused every step of the way. The beauty of Jesus lies in the following. It’s about the journey, not the destination. We are not meant to stop growing, stretching, stumbling, dancing, behind him.
But to flourish in the joy of looking to him with our next inquiry. Our next step.
Faith isn’t about what you believe as much as who you follow.
Follow your rabbi and he will show you what to believe.
It’s because of that rabbi that you believe in the first place.
There is an Author behind the Book. Jesus points to the Bible, not the other way around.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
As we authors say, “show, don’t tell.” (James 2:18)
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 2:19-22
The Bible is the foundation of my Christian stance, and everything I build must align with that cornerstone. I know who I am and who I follow. I choose him. Everything else is commentary and either adds to the foundation I’ve laid or is simply cast aside as unhelpful to me personally.
And though I’ll jot down my list of recent reads (they could easily have been podcasts or video or any number of ways to download info into my brain, but I’m a reader), I will not leave you a review and tell you what to think about them. There were plenty of words for thought and plenty of words I found superfluous, regardless of genre.
You can glean what you wish from any field you walk past. Some is digestible, others not so much, and you can exercise your wisdom to know the difference. You can argue amongst yourselves the whole day’s walk, or you can try not to let your politics and ego take all the fun out of it.
Go with God, my friends.
The Sin of Certainty and The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns
A Year of Biblical Womanhood and Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch
Conflict is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou
Opinions by Roxane Gay
Living the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander